


where i can't follow

by Veridique



Series: fragile soft machines [1]
Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Asexual Fjord (Critical Role), Campaign 2 (Critical Role), F/M, Pining, me? project my issues on a fictional character? never
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-10
Updated: 2019-05-10
Packaged: 2020-02-29 09:57:23
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 990
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18775954
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Veridique/pseuds/Veridique
Summary: Fjord won't admit to Jester how he feels, because how he feels makes no sense to anyone but himA quick drabble of some good ole fashioned asexual pining





	where i can't follow

Fjord’s never said anything to Jester about it.

It’s not like it’s a common event. Once in a blue moon, maybe. If that.

Certainly, she talks about dicks a lot. He suspects it’s the result of her upbringing, or maybe an attempt to make Caleb uncomfortable. It doesn’t seem to have that effect on Caleb, nor, surprisingly, on Fjord. He can laugh at her as she vandalizes another tavern wall or decorates another page of her notebook with cartoonish penises. She even drew a picture of Fjord as a dick once, when she was mad at him for having unknowingly eaten the last pastry at an inn they stayed at (her anger lasted until he bought her a glass of milk in apology), and he grinned when Beau told him about it. He’s got one, after all; the hypothetical concept of a penis isn’t upsetting to him.

Nor is he bothered by her occasional flirting. She’s blunt in all aspects of her life, almost to a fault, and he’s skilled in reading people; he’s not nearly as oblivious to her feelings for him as he puts on. He plays dumb because he doesn’t want to embarrass her, or pressure her into admitting her feelings before she’s ready. That’s what he’d tell anyone who asked, at least.

That’s what he tells himself.

No, her sexual humor doesn’t bother him. Nor do her feelings for him.

It’s the intersection of the two that’s the problem.

She made a joke about his penis, once; nothing she wouldn’t have said about Caleb or Molly, but he certainly didn’t ignore it like Caleb or raise an eyebrow and return the banter like Molly. Instead, he nearly dumped an entire stein of shitty ale onto his own lap, refused to make eye contact with anyone at the table, and forced himself to sit there until he counted to two hundred before excusing himself to the pisser, just so no one thought he was trying to escape from Jester.

He was absolutely trying to escape from Jester.

He stood in the water closet, back pressed against the door (because he never trusted the locks in places like this, and he’d rather anything than have someone walk in on him like this), breathing as deeply and as slowly as he can manage. He didn’t have time to process, to reflect; he just needed to get himself together enough to make it through the evening. 

Upon reflecting, later that night, as he tossed and turned with Molly’s soft breathing coming from the other bed, the only word he could think of to describe his feelings was _objectified_. It sounded foolish, to think of a burly half-orc man being objectified, and even more so because he knew that Jester cared for him, knew that she saw him as far more than a sexual object. But the idea that she thought of his body, at all, was horrifying. He was under the impression that all decent people were under a gentlefolks’ agreement to ignore one another’s bodies, to interact with people’s consciousnesses with no public acknowledgment of the physical vessel that one carried around and fed and rested. 

But Jester clearly was not aware of this agreement. And, based on their reactions, neither were any other members of their party.

So maybe the agreement was all in Fjord’s head.

Maybe normal people, _real_ people saw one another’s bodies. And commented on them. And… _stimulated_ them.

But the idea of someone seeing and commenting on and stimulating _his_ body (or even thinking about doing so) filled him with an unease that he didn’t have words for.

And that went triple if the someone was Jester.

If he’s honest with himself, it’s because he likes her. Likes her in a different way than how he likes the rest of the Nein. He likes her hair and her horns and her easy mannerisms; he likes how it feels when she reaches out to touch him to heal him, when he feels a spark under his skin that doesn’t just come from her magic traveling through his veins. He’s even imagined what it would be like to hold her hand, to wrap his arms around her from behind and inhale the scent of her hair, to press his lips to hers and breathe her air.

But in his imagination, the kiss is always chaste—closed lips, soft, quick, gentle. And it never proceeds any farther.

And that’s why he’s never bothered even considering telling Jester about his feelings. Not because he doubts that she reciprocates, but because he’s certain that she reciprocates _and then some._

It aches within him, to want her so bad and to say nothing. And anytime someone shows interest in her, the ache builds to a sting—the pain of knowing that others are offering her what he’ll never be able to give.

He says it out loud one night. He’s sharing a room with Molly, who’s passed out drunk and who, if he did hear Fjord’s words, is probably too far gone to remember them in the morning (and who certainly has enough discretion to keep things to himself), and he whispers to the darkness and all the things in the night that might be listening _I’m in love with Jester_.

He regrets it the moment he says it. Saying it aloud makes it real, real in a way it wasn’t when it was just the dull ache burning in his chest.

But at the same time, the pain becomes just a hair more bearable when it’s caused by something real. So he whispers it again, and again, and it becomes his mantra as he stays up nights on watch, his lullaby as he finally lays his head down and tries to sleep. Out loud, in his head, in Common or Orcish; no matter what forms the words take, they’re a comfort to the heartache.

_I’m in love with Jester._


End file.
